Menu

Survival Mode.

Monthly Archives: March 2013

I know I said this wasn’t going to be one of THOSE “mommy blogs”, but come on! How can you not love this girl? See what I mean when I say Lucy is the cutest kid of all the kids?!? I just couldn’t help myself 🙂

Over the last 8 months, I’ve realized that I can’t do it all. I can’t keep my house spotless, make baby food, nurse Lucy, make dinner for me and Eric, give Marty all the attention he needs, do the laundry, put the laundry away, go to the grocery store, be a good friend/daughter/wife, etc. So I’ve found some short cuts 🙂

1. Straighten up the living room, then light a laundry scented candle. The house will smell like you’ve cleaned ALL DAY.

2. Designate (at least) one room that will always have the door closed. That room is our office. Also since our bedrooms are upstairs, we don’t invite people to go upstairs.

3. Put your hubby to work. If you have a husband like mine, he wants to help you. Just ask.

4. Let your friends help. They can cuddle with the dog. They can bring you dinner. They can watch your baby. Just ask.

5. As women, we were created to multitask. We are convinced that we are supposed to do all of those thing listed above in order to be a good mom/wife/woman. The only problem with that is, if your attention is everywhere, its really no where. Choose one task and focus on it. Give your peanut all of your attention. When its time to clean, take advantage of nap times and do it right. When its date night, talk to your husband. Otherwise we are only half-assing our lives.

6. The Roomba was one of the greatest inventions ever. Press a button and dog hair be gone!

7. Get a large laundry basket. It will hold more laundry (clean or dirty) while you wait to wash it or put it away.

8. Start introducing flavors that you eat to your baby. The sooner she can eat what you eat, the fewer meals you have to fix. For example, Lucy LOVES guacamole!

9. Tailor your meals to things your baby can eat too (meats, veggies, fruits, grains). You will be healthier and there will be less work to do.

10. Turn your back to the mess. Its not a big deal in grand scheme of things. Instead go for a walk with your family. Sit and relax. Listen to your little one laugh. Those are the important things.

I apologize for the lack in posts. WordPress was posting blank posts for some reason. Hopefully the issue has been resolved!

Last night Eric and I got a babysitter and went to a new (to us) restaurant here in Atlanta.

Gato Arigato in Candler Park is only open for dinner on Monday & Tuesday nights. The rest of the week it is a breakfast and lunch place, and it serves brunch on the weekends. We have been hearing great things from both friends and media about this place, so we decided we needed to make a point and get there and try the food.

It was SO good! We cheated a bit on our diet (dumplings, rice cakes, ramen) but I do not regret it. Something I’ve learned over the past few years, and even more so over the last 8 months, is sometimes you need to give yourself a break. You need a date night. You need some carbs. Otherwise, you won’t survive.

One thing I think Eric and I have done well since Lucy has been born, is make sure we get out of the house. Luckily we have some great family that is willing to travel to see us/babysit pretty often, some great friends that host game nights in our living room while we go out, and we have found a few great sitters. Parenting is definitely a team sport, and every once in a while you need to regroup, without the little one! Even if it is just a cup of coffee or watching your weekly shows together (Breaking Bad, The Americans, HIMYM, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead…we watch a lot of TV), we need a break! Here are some of our recent dates:

Dinners at local restaurants

Cocktails/coffee after baby is asleep

Movies while friends babysit/play games while Lucy sleeps

Concerts (We are doing this Friday – Eric wants to see his fave band of all time, Five Iron Frenzy)

Festivals, beer and otherwise

Stay at home – make a special dinner, turn the TV off and pretend you are in a fancy restaurant. Dates don’t need to be fancy or expensive.

If you have any other creative date night ideas, please share them in the comments. I’m sure there are a bunch of mommies out there, including me, that would love for a few ideas!

Every Friday Lucy goes to a Mother’s Day Out program from 9 -1. This is the best $100/month I could spend! I get to run errands, go to lunch with my best friend, “do chores”, and just relax. Plus Lucy get to socialize with other babies. She even has a music class! She is going to be a prodigy I just know it 🙂

Anyway, the main reason for this post is that today I am wearing the “mommy uniform” that I swore I would never wear. I used to work at a preschool, and I HATED it when moms would pick up their kids in yoga pants like they just worked out, and full make up and hair. Well, friends, I have learned that it is inevitable. Yoga pants are super comfy. And to dress it up, so I don’t look like I REALLY just worked out or rolled out of bed, I put make up on.

Check me out in my yoga pants, sneakers, and Northface fleece 🙂 I love my glorified pajamas! Don’t worry, I didn’t actually sleep in THESE pants last night (never mind about the shirt underneath the fleece). I know I used to judge those moms, and I apologize. They knew what was up!

I like bourbon. I’m not really friends with people who don’t like bourbon. I drink it mixed with sodas, specifically ginger beer. I drink it with ice, whiskey stones, or neat. When looking at the drink menu at restaurants, you can bet I will order a bourbon cocktail. Well, I used to.

Being pregnant did a number on my body. I gained over 50 pounds. Granted, much of that was water weight because of my preeclampsia, but still. That’s a lot of poundage! Until recently, I’ve been telling myself that I will lose the weight. I didn’t really have a plan. I certainly wasn’t dieting. I ABHOR exercising. So I was really just waiting for a miracle. It never came. I went to my annual gyno appointment a few weeks ago, stepped on the scale and silently screamed and cried. Ugh.

I came home, and told my husband that it was time to make a change. We needed to start taking care of ourselves. We were going on a diet. The only diet I’ve ever really successfully done was the South Beach Diet. My parents did it when I was home from college one summer, and I finally lost that Freshman 15…or Sophomore 30…whatever. So that’s what we decided to do. If you aren’t familiar with the diet, its low carb. That means no booze. BOOO! Specifically, the cookbook says no…wait for it…WHISKEY. We are now into phase 2, so we can have the occasional glass of wine, but that is no substitute after a long day of poopie diapers. It doesn’t help that my husband, the day before we started our diet bought an ass ton of whiskey and it is sitting in our glass cabinet in our kitchen. Staring at me. Whispering, “You know you want some…just a little bit won’t kill you.”

Fortunately, I have had some success over the last 2.5 weeks. I’ve even been working out…gross. That is the only thing keeping me motivated. That, and an impending trip to the beach in July. So for now, no bourbon. No beer. No fancy cocktails. An occasional glass of wine will have to sustain me. If I had to wear a bathing suit now, I would feel very bad for the other beach dwellers. So this is really for them. A truly selfless act. But mark my words. As soon as I get to my goal weight, or as soon as I can wait no longer, I will be reopening that bottle of Bulleit and having my fill.

I’ve been thinking about how to really get into this stay at home mom stuff. Diapers? Day/Night reversals? Praying for sleep…mine and Lucy’s? I think before I get into all of that, I will just start at the beginning. Don’t worry…I won’t go into all the gross birth story details, but I will be pretty honest. Be warned.

During my entire pregnancy, my blood pressure had been watched pretty closely because of a minor heart condition. My doctor didn’t seem too worried about preeclampsia but once my feet/legs/hands/face/entire body started swelling like nobody’s business, they decided to test my urine (I will save the awesome story of my 24 hour urine test for another post). While waiting for my results, my mom was here to help me get ready for the baby. I was 39 weeks and decided that it was a good idea to WALK AROUND IKEA. I have no idea why I went. I do not remember what I bought. When I got home I thought it would be a good idea to organize the kitchen cabinets…ON A STEP STOOL. As I was attempting to get rid of all the ugly beer glasses we have collected over the years, my husband walked into the room, bewildered. Before he could get too mad at me or my mom, the phone rang. It was my doctor saying that they found protein in my urine and that I did in fact have preeclampsia. I needed to come to the hospital to be induced. I’m not sure how other people react to this news, but I was excited to not be pregnant anymore! I took a shower, shaved my legs, and got in the car. Luckily I wasn’t in labor because it took an HOUR to get to the hospital.

Before they induced me I BEGGED them for a cheese burger. They gave in 🙂 I can be very persuasive. They used a few methods to induce me (yucky details to be avoided) and after an hour of full on contractions I FINALLY got an epidural. It didn’t work too well. I still felt pressure on the left side of my body and all of the examinations. After 10 hours, Lucy was no where close to entering the world, so the doctor said I needed a C-section. That’s when it hit me. This was really happening. I was going to go into the OR, they were going to cut me open, and then I was going to have a baby. EEEEK!!!

So, remember how I said the epidural didn’t really work? Well in the OR, the original plan was to just up the epidural dose so that I couldn’t feel the surgery. However, I felt them cleaning my stomach, taping things on me, etc. I kept telling them I felt stuff and they told me not to worry. Um…you are about to cut me open AND I CAN STILL FEEL EVERYTHING! I think that’s an OK thing to worry about. They gave me another shot in my spine (awesome) and that finally worked. Not long after that, Lucy was born 🙂 The doctor said there was no way I was going to deliver her naturally because she had such a big head (thanks to her father)! I loved her from the moment they held her up over the curtain! Eric left with her while they stitched me up, which kind of made me sad. I had to wait to hold my baby. If you know me, you know that patience is not really my best quality. Eventually, I went into recovery and got to hold my sweet girl.

I was in the hospital for 3 days total. It sucked. I got out of there as fast as possible. There are a few things I learned during this time, but I will save that for later.

There are a LOT of “mommy” blogs out there. There are a lot of blogs saying, “Look how cute my kid is” and “Look how crafty I am” and “Look how well I raise my child” filling up the internet. I can’t be the only mother out there thinking that’s all a lot of bull! Yes, I do think my kid is the cutest kid of all the kids. Yes, I can do a nifty craft now and then. Yes, I do feel like I am doing a good job raising my child, BUT there is another side to being a stay at home mom.

I will NEVER be the mom with the spotless home. I will NEVER be the mom who does all the Pinterest crafts. I will NEVER be the mom with the baby in the cute DIY outfits. It just isn’t going to happen, and that’s OK. In fact, I’m probably going to have a pretty messy home, and have half-finished crafts that I thought were a great idea when I started, and my baby might be covered in spit-up and God knows what else a lot of the time. SO WHAT! Does that make me a bad mom? Nope. Do I care that I’m not as productive, or as hip, or as creative as some of these other moms writing their own blogs? Sometimes. So I thought I would change things up. This isn’t going to be a blog about how great of a mom, crafter, or homemaker I am. This is going to be a blog about how messy, boring, and unpredictable being a stay at home mom can be. Hopefully this can help other mommies out there commiserate, because honestly, this is hard work.

So here is a little about me. My name is Meagan. I am 28. I have been married to my husband Eric for almost 6 years. I have an 8 month old named Lucy and a 5 year old dog named Marty. Up until last June, I was working as an elementary Special Education teacher. I decided to stay home once I had Lucy because Eric traveled so much for work. I had all of these plans to do projects, bake more, clean more…blah blah blah. Then Lucy was born in July.

Did I do any of that? Yeah right! For the last 8 months I have been hanging by a thread. I have better, more productive days, but generally speaking, all of my energy goes to that big cheeked, blue eyed baby. I spend many days in yoga pants (a.k.a. Pajamas) and I sometimes do chores. Its like Lucy is robbing me of my energy and storing it in her chubby chipmunk cheeks. I’ve had to deal with breastfeeding issues, my husband falling down the stairs carrying the baby, postpartum depression, teething, traveling for the holidays, illness, constipation (Lucy, not me…), and a traveling husband. All on top of keeping this little “bundle of joy” alive. I’ve seriously thought about making a run for it multiple times. I’ve literally thrown temper tantrums where I kicked the wall and hurt my foot. I’ve had days where I did absolutely nothing other than pray that Lucy would take a nap. I have never seen a post on Pinterest about the best way to get pureed sweet potato off of the wall (luckily a wet towel works just fine). I hope this blog can be a place where I can give you an honest picture of what being a stay at home mom is like.